Evaporated milk is whole milk from which about 60 percent of the water has been removed. Evaporated milk is prepared by heating pasteurized homogenized whole milk in vacuum tanks to evaporate the water. This milk is then canned, sealed, and immediately sterilized by heat.
Evaporated milk is different from a product called sweetened condensed milk, though both are prepared in much the same way. Each product consists of milk that has been condensed (concentrated) by evaporating much of its water. However, sweetened condensed milk has large amounts of sugar added as a preservative. Evaporated milk has no sugar added, but many milk processors add vitamin D for nutrition.
The American inventor Gail Borden developed the first milk-condensing process in the 1850’s, using it to make sweetened condensed milk. Swiss inventor John B. Meyenberg produced the first commercially successful evaporated milk in the 1880’s. See also Milk .
